The five hour drive from Ottawa to Spak's place left me a more tired than I expected. With all the eating and pooping, I was shattered. It must have been a good recipe for decent night's sleep cause I slept like a baby.
I woke up early Sunday morning to find that the door to the room that I was staying in at Matt's house was open. I clearly remembered closing it before hunkering down for the night. Why was it open and who opened it? Beside me on my pillow was a big half eaten sucker and my butt cheeks felt sticky. Ewwwwww! Where had I seen the sucker before?!? Matt! Just before beddy-by-time!
I felt a bit violated, but what's a guy to do when he's a guest in someone's house?! Grin and bear it. Needless to say, I won't be staying at Matt's anytime soon. Tanya and I got packed up and headed out the door for the hour or so drive to Mansfield Outdoor Centre where the second race in the Substance Projects Marathon Challenge was taking place.
* In all seriousness, thanks Matt for letting us crash at your place!*
Started the day with a coffee, not the best tasting, but it did the trick. Even with the black gold in my belly, my arse was firing warning shots that it's war on diarrhea may not be over. It took a long time for my belly to wave the surrender flag and settle down.
The left one I call Smith, the right one I call Wesson.
I knew that before the race one way that I could intimidate Peter was by oiling up my guns and ride around the parking lot in my sleeveless jersey. It seemed to work because a lot of people were looking at me and laughing . . . . out of sheer nervousness no doubt. The other way I intimidated was announcing to everyone that I had a bad case of the poopies. No one was willing to pass.
The Dark One and I made a gentleman's agreement to ride together for the entire race seeing that there was only one other single speeder in our category - we figured that if the guy did get ahead of us we could gang up on him and beat him up so that we'd at least finish one/two. My real plan was to ride with Peter for the entire race and in the last kilometer jam a big stick into his spokes and ride away to victory. Success. Alas, within the first fifteen minutes of the race I was off the bike and behind Peter (and a bunch of other riders) trying to unbraid a sappling that had wrapped itself around my disc/hub. I played catch up, killing myself to get back on his wheel. Being the all around good guy he is (sucker), he slowed up and allowed me to get back on. At this point he jacked up the pace. Gass'ed to the tits from pushing it hard to catch up to him, I found it difficult to hold on. Gradually, and after a crash, I got dropped.
It appeared the Dark Lord was not such a simple, transparent adversary. From the precise planting of the downed sappling, to jacking up the pace, to orchestrating my crash . . . . he was playing his hand perfectly.
Only into the race 30-40 minutes and suffering, I let him go and vowed my revenge. Going full out made my already delicate tummy more upset. I knew that I must settle into my own race pace, let my belly calm down and work my way back. It was going to be no easy task, but being defeated by the Empire again was not an option. For the first two hours I tried to keep a steady pace, yet slower than I planned to go out. At about the 35-40 km mark I started feeling good again and picked up the pace. I began to float effortlessly through the single track, my legs powered through the climbs, but I still complained and sucked ass on the sandy, rutted fire roads.
There were a handful of hike-a-bike climbs. At the steepest and longest (around the 50km mark) I dismounted the bike and looked up at the long ascent I had ahead of me only to see Peter trugging slowly upwards. Success. I still had 28kms to the finish, no sense killing myself running up a hill to catch him, I would reel him in soon enough. About a kilometer or two after the top of the hill I finally caught up with him as he walked his bike up yet another steep, sandy pitch. Victory.
From then on we rode to the finish together. We chatted quite a bit and the pace slowed. I get the feeling that we'd be the perfect riding partners on a long race or stage race, like this or this. The longer we rode, the stronger I felt. Another learning experience in my pacing and how I ride. Whoot.
Cramping & nutrition: not an issue. I had noted sometime last week in a post that I take calcium & magnesium supplements which apparently help prevent cramping. I also hydrated with lots and lots of water (more so than normal due to my leaking ass) a couple days before the race. I filled up at every aid station and was very conscious about drinking regularly. Plus, my coconut water experiment (which, by the way, was easy on the belly). Let's not forget Salt Loading. I've also been using E-Discs as an added supplement on the bike - I probably took about a half dozen during the race. During the entire 78.5 km and 4000m of climbing I ate five Cliff Blocks (actual blocks, not packages) and one banana.
Tanya had dared Peter and I to cross the line in a dead tie, holding hands and she would give us twenty bucks each. This was witnessed by the race photographer. So we did. And I'll prove it to you once they get the photos up on the website. We're waiting for our cash Vagabond.
We both took first place in the single speed category for the full marathon 78.5 km, Peter took "Spak First".
The Vegan Vagabond takes third and is the current points leader of the race series in the female division.
She got a big ass cookie for being the points leader! Who wants another crappy t-shirt when you can have a cookie! And the best part was I got to eat it (cause it wasn't all vegan-ated). So I guess that I am truly the women's points leader of the race series . . . . you should have read the fine print Tanya: "The person who eats the big ass cookie then becomes the official points leader of the race series."
I woke up early Sunday morning to find that the door to the room that I was staying in at Matt's house was open. I clearly remembered closing it before hunkering down for the night. Why was it open and who opened it? Beside me on my pillow was a big half eaten sucker and my butt cheeks felt sticky. Ewwwwww! Where had I seen the sucker before?!? Matt! Just before beddy-by-time!
I felt a bit violated, but what's a guy to do when he's a guest in someone's house?! Grin and bear it. Needless to say, I won't be staying at Matt's anytime soon. Tanya and I got packed up and headed out the door for the hour or so drive to Mansfield Outdoor Centre where the second race in the Substance Projects Marathon Challenge was taking place.* In all seriousness, thanks Matt for letting us crash at your place!*
Started the day with a coffee, not the best tasting, but it did the trick. Even with the black gold in my belly, my arse was firing warning shots that it's war on diarrhea may not be over. It took a long time for my belly to wave the surrender flag and settle down.
The left one I call Smith, the right one I call Wesson.I knew that before the race one way that I could intimidate Peter was by oiling up my guns and ride around the parking lot in my sleeveless jersey. It seemed to work because a lot of people were looking at me and laughing . . . . out of sheer nervousness no doubt. The other way I intimidated was announcing to everyone that I had a bad case of the poopies. No one was willing to pass.
The Dark One and I made a gentleman's agreement to ride together for the entire race seeing that there was only one other single speeder in our category - we figured that if the guy did get ahead of us we could gang up on him and beat him up so that we'd at least finish one/two. My real plan was to ride with Peter for the entire race and in the last kilometer jam a big stick into his spokes and ride away to victory. Success. Alas, within the first fifteen minutes of the race I was off the bike and behind Peter (and a bunch of other riders) trying to unbraid a sappling that had wrapped itself around my disc/hub. I played catch up, killing myself to get back on his wheel. Being the all around good guy he is (sucker), he slowed up and allowed me to get back on. At this point he jacked up the pace. Gass'ed to the tits from pushing it hard to catch up to him, I found it difficult to hold on. Gradually, and after a crash, I got dropped.
It appeared the Dark Lord was not such a simple, transparent adversary. From the precise planting of the downed sappling, to jacking up the pace, to orchestrating my crash . . . . he was playing his hand perfectly.
Only into the race 30-40 minutes and suffering, I let him go and vowed my revenge. Going full out made my already delicate tummy more upset. I knew that I must settle into my own race pace, let my belly calm down and work my way back. It was going to be no easy task, but being defeated by the Empire again was not an option. For the first two hours I tried to keep a steady pace, yet slower than I planned to go out. At about the 35-40 km mark I started feeling good again and picked up the pace. I began to float effortlessly through the single track, my legs powered through the climbs, but I still complained and sucked ass on the sandy, rutted fire roads.
There were a handful of hike-a-bike climbs. At the steepest and longest (around the 50km mark) I dismounted the bike and looked up at the long ascent I had ahead of me only to see Peter trugging slowly upwards. Success. I still had 28kms to the finish, no sense killing myself running up a hill to catch him, I would reel him in soon enough. About a kilometer or two after the top of the hill I finally caught up with him as he walked his bike up yet another steep, sandy pitch. Victory.
From then on we rode to the finish together. We chatted quite a bit and the pace slowed. I get the feeling that we'd be the perfect riding partners on a long race or stage race, like this or this. The longer we rode, the stronger I felt. Another learning experience in my pacing and how I ride. Whoot.
Cramping & nutrition: not an issue. I had noted sometime last week in a post that I take calcium & magnesium supplements which apparently help prevent cramping. I also hydrated with lots and lots of water (more so than normal due to my leaking ass) a couple days before the race. I filled up at every aid station and was very conscious about drinking regularly. Plus, my coconut water experiment (which, by the way, was easy on the belly). Let's not forget Salt Loading. I've also been using E-Discs as an added supplement on the bike - I probably took about a half dozen during the race. During the entire 78.5 km and 4000m of climbing I ate five Cliff Blocks (actual blocks, not packages) and one banana.
Tanya had dared Peter and I to cross the line in a dead tie, holding hands and she would give us twenty bucks each. This was witnessed by the race photographer. So we did. And I'll prove it to you once they get the photos up on the website. We're waiting for our cash Vagabond.
We both took first place in the single speed category for the full marathon 78.5 km, Peter took "Spak First".
The Vegan Vagabond takes third and is the current points leader of the race series in the female division. She got a big ass cookie for being the points leader! Who wants another crappy t-shirt when you can have a cookie! And the best part was I got to eat it (cause it wasn't all vegan-ated). So I guess that I am truly the women's points leader of the race series . . . . you should have read the fine print Tanya: "The person who eats the big ass cookie then becomes the official points leader of the race series."
2 comments:
excellent commentary barstein.
exactly how i woulda wrote it.
well you did use less profanity, no photoshoppe and hardly a smattering of drama, but a good shot.
As much as I like turning you into my biotch on on the bike, you're a little to butch for me. Even though those man boobs would make some women jealous. Now I did hear the Molly Monster running around in the middle of the night.
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